Professional animal groomers deal with a large amount of hair during the grooming process. Hair accumulates on the grooming table, floor, and in the bathing tub. Much of this hair is introduced into the air environment as a result of blow drying, hair stripping, brushing, combing, raking, clipping, shearing, de-shedding, carding, and de-matting operations. Much of this hair is physically handled by the groomer as he/she manually removes accumulated hair from various hand tools such as slicker brushes, combs, and rakes. In this latter case, the groomer must use both hands and either drops extracted hair on the floor or deposits such into a waste receptacle. During the bathing process, an abundance of animal hair often finds its way into the drain causing frequent blockage. Most professional grooming shops have plumbing professionals clean shop bathing drains as frequently as every two weeks as a precautionary measure.
Many states employ licensing and/or regulations requiring that animal hair be cleaned up after grooming each animal before another can be groomed at the same workstation. In practice, either hair accumulates on the floor until which time as the groomer decides it must be cleaned up, or it is cleaned up after each animal. Most professional groomers use a standard wet/dry vacuum to accomplish this clean-up operation. Fewer perform such clean-up with brush, broom and dustpan. The environment containing accumulated hair, dander and pests is recognized as unhealthy for both humans and animals. Airborne hair and dander is one way of transmitting skin ailments and disease between animals, and allergens to humans, confined in closed spaces.
Clean-up time can be a substantial portion of the total time allocated to groom an animal. Most grooming business advisors espouse the need to continuously maintain as clean as possible a grooming environment to appease discerning customers.
Professional groomers often suffer from carpal tunnel syndrome, tendonitis, and other maladies resulting from repetitive motion, particularly repetitive motion that involves strain due to weight or resistance to such motion. Anything that can reduce the number of repetitions and/or relieve strain, particularly in using common hand tools, can reduce the incidence and severity of such maladies.
Pet owners often must deal with volumes of hair naturally shed by many animals. This shed hair accumulates around the home during shedding season, creating a general nuisance and requiring more frequent home vacuuming and cleaning.
One of the problems faced by all groomers is the accumulation of hair on their hand tools (combs, rakes, brushes, etc.) during use. FIG. 9(A) shows a slicker brush before use, and FIG. 9(B) after use. Groomers normally use their free hand to remove the hair (and with slicker brushes in particular, presents a relatively arduous, repetitive task). FIG. 9C illustrates that even rakes and combs are affected.